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Yugoslavs Taped Meetings of General, U.S. Diplomat
Western Officials Say Spy Scandal Was Designed by Hard-Liners to
Embarrass Serb Reformers
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 28, 2002; Page A21
BELGRADE, March 27 -- A U.S. Embassy official and a former Yugoslav
general who were arrested this monthand charged with espionage had been
meeting privately for months and were videotaped together for more than
40 hours by Yugoslav military intelligence, according to senior Western
and Yugoslav officials who have reviewed some of the tapes.
A Western diplomat said there was no evidence on the tapes he watched
that the American received classified documents from the Yugoslav,
Momcilo Perisic. But the diplomat said there was one instance in which
the American, identified by the Yugoslavs as John David Neighbor, might
have handed over cash, although poor picture quality makes it impossible
to be sure.
A senior Yugoslav official said that other tapes contained direct
evidence of espionage. He said Neighbor was recorded receiving
classified military documents from Perisic; in return, Perisic was
recorded receiving cash from Neighbor. The American was released after
15 hours in custody and later left the country.
The arrests caused a crisis in the fragile governments of Yugoslavia and
its dominant republic, Serbia, both of which are under pressure from the
United States to build democratic institutions destroyed during the rule
of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.
A Western official said that Neighbor did not inform U.S. Ambassador
William D. Montgomery of his furtive meetings with Perisic in advance
and that U.S. diplomats in the embassy were furious when they learned
about them. The public uproar was said to have undercut the embassy's
efforts to work with reformers here by portraying them as being in the
Americans' pocket.
At the time of his arrest, Perisic was a deputy prime minister of
Serbia, which since Milosevic's fall in 2000 has worked closely with the
United States on such issues as the extraditions of war crimes suspects.
Western diplomats view the government of Yugoslavia, headed by President
Vojislav Kostunica, and its military as much less cooperative.
Western officials contend that the arrests, carried out after at least
six months of surveillance, were orchestrated by hard-liners in the
Yugoslav government to embarrass the Serbian government and make it
politically difficult for Serbia to hand over war crimes suspects to a
U.N. tribunal in The Hague.
Serbia is under particular pressure to do so now because the United
States has set a deadline of Sunday for deciding whether to continue
aid. One of the standards governing that decision is cooperation on war
crimes prosecutions.
Western and Yugoslav officials call the two men's actions a case of rank
amateurism. Perisic, a declared enemy of Yugoslavia's military
leadership, was almost certainly under surveillance by intelligence
agencies, the officials said, adding that Neighbor should have known
that and factored that into his dealings with Perisic.
The Yugoslav official rejected U.S. allegations that Neighbor was
manhandled during the arrest and that a bag was put over his head. He
said Neighbor asked for his handcuffs as a souvenir when he was
released, which the Yugoslav said was not the act of an outraged person.
The request was refused. The official conceded that Neighbor was held
too long by the military -- 15 hours -- and should have been let go in a
couple of hours.
The United States has not publicly identified the American, but has said
that he was a first secretary at the embassy. The charges against him
were officially dropped. "The case is closed," said State Department
spokesman Larry Schwartz. "We've received an apology from the Yugoslav
government and we've accepted the apology."
Prosecutors have said they were weighing evidence to decide whether to
prosecute the general. He was also released and subsequently resigned
from the Serbian government.
The videotapes and audiotapes, made at meetings in a car and at an
apartment in Belgrade rented by Perisic for the encounters, have been
circulated widely within the governments of Yugoslavia and Serbia.
Sources said some of the tapes have also been reviewed by Montgomery,
the U.S. ambassador.
After the arrests, the Yugoslav military found large numbers of
classified documents at Perisic's office, Western and Yugoslav officials
said.
The Yugoslav official, who is close to Kostunica, said the military
arrested the men when it felt it had enough evidence to secure a
conviction against Perisic. He said Kostunica was aware of the outlines
of the surveillance as it was carried out but that he did not have exact
details.
"Nobody wanted this and nobody is happy about this," said the Yugoslav
official, noting that Neighbor was meeting separately with Yugoslav
security services and had met with subordinates of Kostunica recently.
"When he started to hire high-ranking government officials for cash, he
crossed the line and we had to stop it. Our cooperation is good, and the
U.S.A. does not need Mr. Perisic, who is not a very capable individual."
Despite the arrest crisis, Serbia has begun to satisfy the Bush
administration pressure for more war crimes prosecutions. On Tuesday,
Serbia released 148 ethnic Albanian prisoners who had been in Serbian
prisons since the Milosevic years and bused them to Kosovo, a
U.N.-administered province, where most were freed today.
Western officials said they have also been told to expect extradition of
a number of war crimes suspects. But Western and Yugoslav officials said
the leading indictee believed to be in Serbia, Gen. Ratko Mladic,
accused of genocide and crimes against humanity in the 1992-95 Bosnian
war, is unlikely to be arrested before Sunday's deadline.
Nonetheless, Serbian officials recently told Western officials that
Mladic is now banned from military bases in Serbia and has no soldiers
from the Yugoslav army in his dwindling security detail. Western
officials said that implies the Yugoslav army had been sheltering Mladic
in the past.
Western officials said they believe it will still take a substantial
military operation to capture him because he is surrounded by fanatical
Bosnian supporters who are willing to die to protect him.
C 2002 The Washington Post Company
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28191-2002Mar27.html
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